


Bookends to Limbo

by amaresu



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Episode: s01e01 Pilot, Gen, Podfic Available, Pre-Series, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-27
Updated: 2012-10-27
Packaged: 2017-11-17 03:51:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 776
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/547325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amaresu/pseuds/amaresu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ollie's gone, Ollie's alive, it's like a dream come true.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bookends to Limbo

She remembers hearing the phone ring. The deadly silence that followed after and then never seemed to go away. She remembers walking down the hall and finding her mom sitting on the floor, looking up at her with tears streaming down her face, “Oh, Thea, Thea, they're gone.” 

She remembers listening to her mom tell her about the storm, the yacht lost at sea, and sitting on the floor until Raisa found them; then it was three sitting on the floor crying.

She remembers all of it as she walks through the door, so late in the evening it's morning, to find her mom sitting on the stairs with tears streaming down her face. She can hear Walter upstairs talking on the phone, although she can't make out what he's saying. She stands frozen in the doorway until her mom sees her and then she's caught in her mom's smile. There are still tears, but she's smiling and Thea doesn't know what to do. This time when her mom says, “Oh, Thea, Thea,” it's followed by, “they found him, they found Oliver” and “all alone for five years” and it takes a bit for it to sink in that her father is still dead, but her brother is alive and she's sitting on the steps with her mother laughing and crying and Raisa passes them with a smile wider than Thea's seen in years. 

It's not until Walter comes down the stairs to inform them of the arrangements for getting Oliver home that she suddenly thinks to call Tommy. Tommy who's been like a second brother to her after her real brother died and who always made sure to stop in once a week and see how she's doing. She claws her phone out of her bag and dials his number. It's too early to be calling, but she knows he won't care, not when Oliver is alive. He's barely picked up before she's telling him, “Ollie's alive. They found him, he's alive. Ollie's alive!”

The next few days are a blur of anticipation. Walter made all the arrangements to get Ollie home, so she's left with nothing to do, but sit around the house waiting. Waiting for them to say he's back, waiting to see her brother again, waiting for all of her fantasies to prove true five years late. Tommy stops by for a few hours and then leaves and then comes back, like he can only stay away for so long now that Ollie's almost home. They sit in silence as mom and Raisa rush through the house making sure everything is perfect for Ollie. When Tommy leaves she paces in her room, sleeping when she thinks of it, and she stares at her small stash of drugs before deciding to stay sober for Ollie's return. The time would pass quicker, but she doesn't want to be trashed when she sees her brother again for the first time in five years.

And then she wakes up to find her mom gone, gone to pick up Ollie without her. She's so angry she could scream, but Walter puts his hand on her shoulder and smiles gently, “She's meeting him at the hospital. He's been on an island for five years, he needs to be checked out for any illnesses.”

She accepts the excuse and tries not to think that her mom just forgot that she would want to come. Tries not to think of the injuries part of the check up Walter carefully didn't mention. Now the wait is to hear from her mom and when Walter gets the call she barely restrains herself from snatching the phone out of his hand. Instead he puts it on speaker and they can both hear her mom tell them what the doctors told her. Just like that the blur of time stops and changes to an agonizing crawl. She tries not to think about what her mom said, the scars and broken bones and how quiet Ollie seemed. Each minute seems to last an hour, the silence in the house broken only by Tommy's calls as he checks to see if Ollie's home yet. She's not entirely sure how she manages to last until she hears the car pulling up to the house. It's hard, but she forces herself not to run down the stairs. Ollie had gone through hell from what her mom said, she wants to give him space.

Still, staring down at him from the top of the staircase is like living out one of her fantasies. Ollie is home and real and she just knows everything is going to be alright now.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Bookends to Limbo [Podfic]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/726692) by [paraka](https://archiveofourown.org/users/paraka/pseuds/paraka)




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